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Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Derngate, Northampton, November 12th

So for the first time the Screaming Blue Murder night was held on a Friday instead of a Thursday. A positive trend I think, as the club was full, and we arrived a little late so that we had no alternative but to sit in the front row and cope with the interaction with the comics! Actually it wasn’t too bad, as we had our friend Jürgen with us and he gladly played the role of “Comedy German”, taking some of the heat off us.

Another difference was that we had a different compere for a change. Stan Stanley, very entertaining, not so much a compere more of an additional act, which was fine; some good observations and excellent physical comedy, and much as I like Dan Evans our usual host, it was good to get a whole new bunch of material to link the acts.

First was Michael Legge. Engaging, fast material, thought provoking, and very funny. Involved me (a bit) in the act but it wasn’t at all hostile, so I felt very comfortable joining in. I’d happily see his act again.

Next was Anthony King. This guy reminded us of a friend of ours, and his deadpan style added to that! He often corpsed through his deadpan stuff and that was actually very endearing and funny. He had some clever musical material but not all of it worked. It was during the course of his act that some people at the back of the hall started to make up their own jokes which must have been very irritating for the people surrounding them. Fortunately Stan Stanley told them to shut up before the final act!

Finally we had Earl Okin. Another funny musical act, that traded on his being an unusual sex symbol, much of which was excellent and carried us along with him.

The whole thing worked very well because of the larger audience, so I hope they keep up the Friday nights. This was definitely one of their better shows.